FACULTY RESEARCH

Faculty List

Caius G. Radu, M.D.

Work Email Address: cradu@mednet.ucla.edu

Office Phone Number: 310-990-6488

Work Phone Number: 310-825-1205

Office Address:
AR-175 CHS
Los Angeles, CA 90095

Department / Division Affiliations
Assistant Professor, Biomedical Physics IDP, Molecular & Medical Pharmacology
Member, ACCESS Program: Dept. of Molecular & Medical Pharmacology, Cancer Molecular Imaging, ACCESS Program, CTSI, Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging, Institute for Molecular Medicine

Research Interests
Inflammatory and immune disorders are major public health concerns and novel non-invasive approaches are needed for disease diagnosis, monitoring and accelerating new therapeutics testing. Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging of metabolic activity has been used extensively in cancer diagnosis and evaluation, with more than 3 million PET scans administered in clinical centers worldwide in 2005. However, PET applications in autoimmunity, inflammation and monitoring cancer immunotherapy have been limited. Our current research is directed in several areas: (i) development of novel PET probes to image T lymphocyte activation and inflammation; (ii), evaluation of cancer immunotherapy using PET reporter gene approaches; (iii), development of non-immunogenic PET reporter gene systems.


Publications
Yang, L.V., Radu, C.G., Roy, M., Sunyoung Lee, S., McLaughlin, J., Michael A. Teitell, M.A., M. Luisa Iruela-Arispe, M.L., and Witte, O.N. Vascular Abnormalities in Mice Deficient for the G Protein-Coupled Receptor GPR4 That Functions as a pH Sensor. Mol Cell Biol 2007; 27(4): 1334-47.
Benz Matthias R, Czernin Johannes, Allen-Auerbach Martin S, Dry Sarah M, Sutthiruangwong Piriya, Spick Claudio, Radu Caius, Weber Wolfgang A, Tap William D, Eilber Fritz C 3'-deoxy-3'-[(18) F]fluorothymidine positron emission tomography for response assessment in soft tissue sarcoma: A pilot study to correlate imaging findings with tissue thymidine kinase 1 and Ki-67 activity and histopathologic response.. Cancer. 2012; 118(12): 3135-44.
Lee Jason T, Campbell Dean O, Satyamurthy Nagichettiar, Czernin Johannes, Radu Caius G Stratification of nucleoside analog chemotherapy using 1-(2'-deoxy-2'-18F-fluoro-β-D-arabinofuranosyl)cytosine and 1-(2'-deoxy-2'-18F-fluoro-β-L-arabinofuranosyl)-5-methylcytosine PET.. Journal of nuclear medicine : official publication, Society of Nuclear Medicine. 2012; 53(2): 275-80.
Yaghoubi Shahriar S, Campbell Dean O, Radu Caius G, Czernin Johannes Positron emission tomography reporter genes and reporter probes: gene and cell therapy applications.. Theranostics. 2012; 2(4): 374-91.
Campbell Dean O, Yaghoubi Shahriar S, Su Ying, Lee Jason T, Auerbach Martin S, Herschman Harvey, Satyamurthy Nagichettiar, Czernin Johannes, Lavie Arnon, Radu Caius G Structure-guided engineering of human thymidine kinase 2 as a positron emission tomography reporter gene for enhanced phosphorylation of non-natural thymidine analog reporter probe.. The Journal of biological chemistry. 2012; 287(1): 446-54.
Vatakis Dimitrios N, Koya Richard C, Nixon Christopher C, Wei Liu, Kim Sohn G, Avancena Patricia, Bristol Gregory, Baltimore David, Kohn Donald B, Ribas Antoni, Radu Caius G, Galic Zoran, Zack Jerome A Antitumor activity from antigen-specific CD8 T cells generated in vivo from genetically engineered human hematopoietic stem cells.. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2011; 108(51): E1408-16.
Laing Rachel E, Walter Martin A, Campbell Dean O, Herschman Harvey R, Satyamurthy Nagichettiar, Phelps Michael E, Czernin Johannes, Witte Owen N, Radu Caius G Noninvasive prediction of tumor responses to gemcitabine using positron emission tomography.. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2009; 106(8): 2847-52.
Shu Chengyi J, Radu Caius G, Shelly Stephanie M, Vo Dan D, Prins Robert, Ribas Antoni, Phelps Michael E, Witte Owen N Quantitative PET reporter gene imaging of CD8+ T cells specific for a melanoma-expressed self-antigen.. International immunology. 2009; 21(2): 155-65.
Radu Caius G, Shu Chengyi J, Nair-Gill Evan, Shelly Stephanie M, Barrio Jorge R, Satyamurthy Nagichettiar, Phelps Michael E, Witte Owen N Molecular imaging of lymphoid organs and immune activation by positron emission tomography with a new [18F]-labeled 2'-deoxycytidine analog.. Nature medicine. 2008; 14(7): 783-8.
Bailey, R.C., Kwong, G.A, Radu, C.G., Witte, O.N., Heath, J.R. DNA-Encoded Antibody Libraries: A Unified Platform for Multiplexed Cell Sorting and Detection of Genes and Proteins. J Am Chem Soc 2007; .
Radu CG, Shu CJ, Shelly SM, Phelps ME, Witte ON Positron emission tomography with computed tomography imaging of neuroinflammation in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2007; .
Radu, C.G., Cheng, D., Nijagal, A., Riedinger, M.,, McLaughlin, J., Yang, L.V, Johnson, J., and Witte, O. N. Normal Immune Development and Glucocorticoid-induced Thymocyte Apoptosis in Mice Deficient for the T cell Death-Associated Gene-8 Receptor. Mol Cell Biol 2006; 26(2): 668-77.
Shu, C. J., Guo, S., Kim, J.Y., Shelly, S., Ray, P., Gambhir, S.S., Radu, C.G., and Witte, O. N. Visualization of a primary anti-tumor immune response by positron emission tomography. PNAS 2005; 102(48): 17412-7.
Radu, C.G., Nijagal, A., McLaughlin, J., Wang, L., Witte, O.N. Differential proton sensitivity of related G protein-coupled receptors T cell death-associated gene 8 and G2A expressed in immune cells. PNAS 2005; 102(5): 1632-7.
Yang, L.V., Radu, C.G., Wang, L., Riedinger, M., Witte, O.N. Gi-independent macrophage chemotaxis to lysophosphatidylcholine via the immunoregulatory GPCR G2A. Blood 2005; 105(3): 1127-34.
Radu, C.G., Yang, L.V., Riedinger, M., Au, M., Witte, O.N. T cell chemotaxis to lysophosphatidylcholine through the G2A receptor. PNAS 2004; 101(1): 245-50.